


Caught in a Lasting Tide

by Skaldic_Jedi



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Drowning, F/F, Heavy Angst, Implied Sexual Content, Kissing, Original Character Death(s), Pining, oc simping for an evil queen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:02:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27658555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skaldic_Jedi/pseuds/Skaldic_Jedi
Summary: There were many thoughts that occurred to her as the shadow of the great wave fell upon Zin-Azshari, but chief among them was this: they wouldn’t have the time together Azshara had always promised they would. The queen would never again invite Silnarissa behind her dressing screen with a sly smile and let her clothing fall away, commanding her royal seamstress to replace her dress with the heat of her hands and mouth. Sil would never be given the chance to confess the depths of her feelings for Azshara in word as well as service.All was coming to an end sooner than expected.______Based off the Azshara: Warbringers cinematic.
Relationships: Azshara (Warcraft) & Original Female Character(s), Azshara (Warcraft)/Original Female Character(s), Azshara/Nightborne (Warcraft)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19





	Caught in a Lasting Tide

Silnarissa had just finished making Azshara's new dress on the day their city drowned.

The dress was a work of art, made from delicate tidespray linen so thin it was nearly as translucent as the water from which the fabric drew its name. Sil had handsewn pearls around the neckline, descending the curve of the narrow waist in neat lines all the way down to the flared skirts like a caudal fin. It was elegant and dramatic and more than a little erotic, just as it pleased her charismatic queen. Quite possibly it was Sil's finest work to date.

Yet the queen would never have cause to wear it.

There were many thoughts that occurred to her as the shadow of the great wave fell upon Zin-Azshari, but chief among them was this: they wouldn’t have the time together Azshara had always promised they would. The queen would never again invite Silnarissa behind her dressing screen with a sly smile and let her clothing fall away, commanding her royal seamstress to replace her dress with the heat of her hands and mouth. Sil would never be given the chance to confess the depths of her feelings for Azshara in word as well as service. All was coming to an end sooner than expected.

The gift of this dress would have been a new beginning for them, the start of something serious. A silky confession in a language Azshara could have understood. Sil had truly believed that. Many times during her labors she had imagined sliding the dress over her lover’s head and watching the fabric settle across Azshara’s stomach and thighs like ripples in a pond. She’d pictured the smile that would erupt on the queen’s face, her golden eyes alighting with pleasure. 

Was there anything more joyous than to finally be recognized and beloved by the center of your world, and to be acknowledged as being the center of theirs?

It was late morning when the rumbling first started, and initially, Sil had thought nothing of it. Magical experiments often sent tiny tremors throughout the city as Azshara’s beloved Highborne played with powers beyond mortal comprehension. To those attuned to the same magic, and even for many without, living in Zin-Azshari was like living on the deck of a ship at sea, a constant sense of great and terrible forces heaving beneath you.

Before becoming the royal seamstress and one of Azshara’s privileged handmaidens, Sil had spent time learning the blade, not sorcery. Once, Azshara had teased her by levitating both of Sil’s swords right out of her hands during a practice bout. _Nothing material can ever hope to compete with the arcane_ , she’d said dismissively. _But I welcome you to prove me wrong._ When later in that same match, Sil unbalanced the queen by hooking her foot around her ankle and pinned her to the floor, Azshara had only smirked beneath the threatening point of Sil’s blade.

Maybe if she’d spent more time with the same arcane mysteries that enthralled Azshara she would have had more advanced notice of the incoming cataclysm. She would have reached the queen sooner and taken them both to safety, as she had been trained to do in the event of an attack. 

Except as the screams started outside and Sil leaned out of the tower window to find the source of all the commotion, she knew that was only wishful thinking. Even with days to prepare, Sil would not have been able to do anything against the dark wall of water currently accelerating toward the city. Everyone on the outskirts would already be gone. There was no one there she could save.

But Azshara had said she would be remaining on the palace grounds today.

Sil quickly scanned the room for anything that might help—a weapon, a potion, _anything_ —but Azshara had been right. Nothing material could compete with the arcane. Holding tightly to the belief that all might still be well if she could just reach Azshara, Sil raced for the stairs. 

She left the queen’s gown wilting like a flower on the chair behind her.

#

_“It’s the queen!”_

_“Help! Queen Azshara, save us!”_

_“SAVE US!”_

Her people’s terror chorused in Azshara’s ears as she held back the flood, the combined might of her own magic and that of Sharas’dal barely enough to fight the apocalyptic tides. Already half her city had disappeared into the sea. The rest would soon follow if her strength failed. _If_. 

Her Highborne stood in the safe anchorage she’d made for them, clinging to one another with bright wild gazes, bodies frozen in the manner of prey. They all looked to her to do something. Couldn’t they see that she already was?

Her muscles cramped against the impossible strain as the wave pressed against her barrier, demanding what little remained of her empire. _No_ , she thought. _You will not have it. It is mine. I am queen and I will not bend._

Azshara stared sightlessly ahead, so focused on her efforts that she did not see her seamstress shoving through the crowd until Silnarissa had almost reached her. Her heart slammed against her chest in that irritating way it had of late each time they were alone together. She hated it. It reminded her of being afraid. But just now she could forgive herself this one weakness. Sil had survived. She was _here_. All the more reason Azshara couldn’t give up, couldn’t—

 _Let go_ , a voice whispered.

It was calm and small and certain, and for a moment she was afraid it was her own.

_It is over._

On the quiet border of her panic, Azshara savagely denied this truth, but in her heart, in that dark, pitted valley where she had long ago burned out the petty feelings of right and wrong, she knew otherwise. _I have been betrayed._ Sargeras had promised her power, a way to shape the world into her own image, making it beautiful and perfect. But this was not beautiful. This was not perfect. This was a nightmare from which she could not seem to wake. And everything she had done, all she had sacrificed, the thousands whose lives she had already spent on her vision—it was all for _nothing._

 _“Azshara!_ ” Silnarissa had reached the bottom of the stairs. She stumbled on the first few steps as the stone shook beneath her. _What could she possibly be thinking?_ Azshara wondered absently, her own breath coming fast and shallow now. Silnarissa could wield sword and needle well enough, but at the end of the day, she was only mortal. Her talents were useless here.

And yet. Something in the other woman’s expression, the partial relief as their eyes met, told Azshara she was not here to fight. Sil was simply here to _be_ —to be with her, at the end.

The barrier began to crack.

 _Run_ , she wanted to tell her foolish lover, but there was nowhere for her to go. Nowhere for any of them to go. There was only the cold doom waiting to swallow them whole—the doom she had brought to her beautiful world. Rage built into a banshee scream inside Azshara’s throat. Silnarissa reached out to her, mere steps away, but Azshara never felt her touch as the barrier failed and the great wave ushered them both away into a collapsing maelstrom of stone and water.

The queen, in the end, did not bend.

But even her magic could not save her empire from breaking.

#

_"Where have you been? You kept me waiting." Azshara lay on her back, sprawled across the white stone basin surrounding one of the palace's private reflective pools. Her eyes were closed but her ears had doubtless picked up the sound of Sil's footsteps._

_“Apologies, my queen,” Sil replied as the queen lifted her hand and opened her palm in a lazy gesture for Sil to join her. The stone warmed her back as Silnarissa lay down beside the queen, and above the sky glowed a strong, clear blue. A perfect day, as was often the case in Zin-Azshari. “I was working.” She’d begun sketching out the designs of a new gown. It was still the early stages, but she kept waking in the middle of the night, driven to make some adjustment. She needed it to be perfect. She needed it to speak to certain truths in her heart that words could not adequately express._

_“Always working,” Azshara murmured. She finally turned her head, golden eyes opening. Sil felt something powerful roll over low in her stomach, a pained hope that Azshara would lean in, as she sometimes did. Her heartbeat deferred until the queen spoke again. “Do you ever rest?”_

_“I prefer to make myself useful...” Sil started to say. Her long hair had flattened into a dark spread on the stone, and, breathless, she watched Azshara measure a few strands in her long fingers._

_“I can think of a few ways for you to be useful.”_

_Azshara slung one leg over Sil’s thighs and drew herself up above her. When Sil tried to sit up, tried to slide her hands around Azshara’s waist, the queen placed a hand against Sil’s chest and pushed her back down—not roughly, but not bothering to be gentle either. She leaned over, her white hair becoming a slight partition against the sun, and smiled._

_“Do you love your queen, seamstress?” Azshara purred, tracing the curve of Sil's cheek with the point of her finger._

_Sil couldn’t help her own knowing smile. “Of course.”_

_“Then show me.”_

#

Silnarissa did not remember drowning. 

She woke cold, the last of her living heat escaping in a frosty breath. She woke alone, inside a dark unfamiliar hall, the bodies of corpses stacked like firewood nearby, none who looked like her. 

She woke dead. 

This last revelation came as the greatest surprise to her, along with her new powers and the compelling desire to serve a master she did not know. A king whose name meant nothing to her.

Everything to do with the Sundering, the destruction of the Well of Eternity, Zin-Azshari’s doom… all of it sat at the back of her mind like a dream she’d once had. It would be years later—many, many years—before she learned what Azshara had done. Her part in all of it. How she had bargained with an old god and transformed their people into the naga to save them, and herself. How rumors claimed she still lived, her enduring empire hidden somewhere beneath the waves.

Why had Azshara left her behind? Why had she abandoned Sil to drown instead of gifting her scales and gills and fin? Instead of bringing her down into her extended glory?

_Why hadn’t she wanted me?_

Perhaps one day she would encounter the queen again, if the gossip was true, and ask her outright. Demand answers. What might happen then she couldn’t say. Azshara had always enjoyed her secrets, but she could also be cold and careless. Maybe leaving Sil to perish in the empty depths had simply been a fickle choice made in a moment of frantic decision, entirely thoughtless. Maybe there was no greater answer to be had than _because_.

Sil wasn’t sure if that was better or worse. She wished she could untangle herself from Azshara, but it wasn’t that easy. Where the queen had rooted no snip of scissors or cut from a blade could correct. She was embedded like a hard coral, still reaching through her with edges so sharp that it would have hurt her to breathe if she still required such a thing.

 _Suffer well_ , she had been told upon entering her new life.

No doubt she would.

#

The dead floated before Queen Azshara and she floated with them.

Sunlight filtered down from the faraway surface, dissolving into punishing shades of deep blue that made the corpses appear even less alive, already withering to grey. Not all went quickly. Some of her people thrashed mindlessly in the current, bodies fighting for air before finally going still. Their terrified gazes froze on her, just as they had in the palace courtyard, but this time there was also the heat of accusation seared into their eyes. _You did this._ _This is your fault._

And then there was Sil. She’d swam _toward_ Azshara, toward the deadly wave after it had come through the barrier. Now she floated like the rest, slightly hunched, her shoulders convulsing once, twice as the last of her air leaked from her mouth. Her hand remained outstretched, fingers trapped in the seeking.

Azshara found herself reaching back to her, wishing, for just a moment, that things could have been different. But they could not, would not. For she had made a deal, another one—a _better_ one. She would remain queen, but she would never have need of a seamstress again. It would have been easy to let N’Zoth take Silnarissa along with the rest of her people, those who had drowned slowly enough to be saved. Transformed. Yet it pricked her to picture Sil trapped in scales she did not want, slave to an old god instead of willing servant to Azshara, her queen. It was Azshara who had raised her from obscurity. Azshara who had never let fear touch the golden edges of Sil’s world, even at the end when she knew what was coming. Azshara who had lo—

Death was final. But it could also be merciful.

In the dark waiting of N’Zoth’s decision, she curled her hand around Sil’s chin, lifting her head. More bubbles slid past the other woman’s lips but she did not otherwise stir. Azshara pressed an airless kiss to her mouth, remembering an afternoon many months ago that they had spent luxuriating in the warm sun beside one of her pools. She had been happy in those private hours. Rarely, marvellously, unconditionally happy. But happiness was not the grand objective of her life as it was for other, lesser beings. It was not enough for Azshara to be _happy_. It had never been.

A magnificent change was upon her now and soon the pain of this moment and all the moments that came before it would fall away like a decadent staircase crumbling from the base up. To grab true and lasting power, one could not stay holding onto weakness.

 _Goodbye, my dear one_ , Azshara whispered, and released Silnarissa reluctantly to the dark.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed!
> 
> twitter: @Skaldic_Jedi


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